


On Sentimentality

by guineapiggie



Series: written for the Jyn Appreciation Squad [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, because that's stupid, haha - Freeform, in which jyn forms attachments, not people, to weapons, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 23:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: The last pair of truncheons she lost, she lost on Jedha. The loss was overshadowed by other losses, bigger losses, of course, but still. Somehow she still remembers the way Cassian looked at her in that alley.It’s stupid, but she can’t help it.





	On Sentimentality

“Jyn? I got some food at that market,” he says and she looks up at him for a moment, then down again at the jacket she’s mending.

On the edge of her vision, she can see him raise his shoulders, just a little, insecure. “Okay, I stole it.”

She almost smiles at that. She’s not sure if that was the goal, or if he just thinks she would be angry with him if she ate it and then found out it was stolen.

(She wouldn’t be, obviously. Before they got her out of Wobani, every time she had real food, it was stolen – but she’s touched, somehow, at how painstakingly he does that, correct himself, consciously keeps himself from lying to her.)

It’s such a tiny gesture, really, but it makes her feel a little warmer, and the annoyance that’s been filling her for hours recedes just a little.

He’s still looking at her, warm dark sad kind eyes, and she won’t look up now. She’s learned not to, since Scarif. The way he looks at her sometimes lights a fire in the pit of her stomach that makes it very hard to think, and there’s a bitter taste on her tongue. It makes her think about the things she wants, suddenly, the stupid things she wants but is too scared to have. And even if she wasn’t –

She fixes her eyes on her stitching.

“Do you want some?”

“What?”

“Food,” he specifies, still with that weird little shrug, and she wishes she wouldn’t make him so goddamn uncomfortable all the time. She wishes she wasn’t so –

She pricks the tip of her forefinger.

“No.”

He lingers in the door, eyes fixed somewhere on her feet.

“Do not bother,” comes the indignant voice of Kaytoo from the cockpit. “She is irritated because she lost her weapon.”

She sees him frown. “They took my blaster?“

“No, I have it here, and it’s _mine_ ,” she answers, a little too harshly, and doesn’t look up. “You can’t prove it.”

A small smile twitches around his lips for just a moment. “Of course.”

She sighs softly and holds up the tissue against the light. “My truncheons. Lost them in the chase.”

“Kriff.”

They weren’t the ones she got with the partisans – those she lost pretty quickly, years ago. Saw might have taken them, actually. He always said blasters were better, more distance to the target, easier to take on more than one trooper at a time.

But Jyn always liked them, took to them immediately the first time one of the older partisans thrust them into her hand because nobody else wanted them. She liked how hands-on they were, how you could feel how much of an impact you made, immediately know if they were going to get up again or not. They’ve got sentimental value, now, of course, even though she’s on her sixth pair or so and even though she’s tried not to make it a sentimental thing. But the truncheons got her out of a tight spot too often for that not to happen, and she supposes she can allow herself to be a little pissed that she’s lost her pair. They make her feel safer.

(So do Cassian’s steps behind her, even Kaytoo’s, but this is something she can’t admit, not even to herself.)

The last pair she lost, she lost on Jedha. The loss was overshadowed by other losses, bigger losses, of course, but still. Somehow she still remembers the way Cassian looked at her in that alley.

It’s stupid, but she can’t help it.

“Bodhi got them for me,” she says softly, eyes still on her stitching, and has no idea why.

“I’m sorry, Jyn.” He sounds sincere, and she appreciates it.

“It’s fine. I have other stuff,” she replies in what she hopes to be an indifferent voice, and carefully ties a knot into her thread before ripping the leftover bit of string off. “We got the intel out.”

“We did,” he answers with a small nod, then hesitantly: “You really don’t want anything to eat?”

“No. Thanks.”

* * *

 

Almost a month later, there’s a knock on the door of the quarters she shares with Bodhi.

“Jyn?”

She looks up from her datapad and fights down the two conflicting emotions that always boil up at the sound of that voice at the door, an embarrassing surge of elation, and an immediate nervousness because she just knows she’ll mess up again.

“Come in.”

He’s wearing his big blue parka and a scarf haphazardly wrapped around his neck – she recognises it as one Chirrut gave him a while back, that day he insisted was Cassian’s birthday even though he never confirmed.

“I’m on my way out,” he mutters when he sees her eyes linger on the parka. “Recon mission. Three days, maybe four.”

“Okay,” she mutters, even though it’s not. He got hurt on the last mission, just three days ago. He should rest, but of course he won’t.

“Um,” he says, reaching into his pocket. “I got you something. It – it wasn’t supposed to take this long. They’re – well, they’re not exactly standard issue.”

He shrugs, a motion that almost vanishes in the fluffy hood of the parka, and pulls out something black about as long as his forearm.

“Here.”

She gets to her feet a little too quickly, plucking them out of his hands with a surprised little smile that she forgot to wipe off in time.

“Cassian –“

“I tried to get some more like the ones you had, but –“

She shakes her head, fingers closing around them, and keeps the smile where it is. “No. Thank you.”

“They – they don’t unfold as smoothly, they might –“

“I had ones like these once,” she cuts him off, staring down at them. “My first ones, I think.” She forces herself to raise her head and meet his eyes. He still looks unconvinced, so she shakes her head again. “They’re perfect. Thank you.”

That gets her a small smile.

“Be careful,” she says, stupidly, before she can stop herself, but his smile stays where it is.

“Yes,” he mutters, hands in his pockets, then adds with a slight grin before he leaves: “Don’t use these on rebels unless you have to, alright? I’ll get in trouble.”


End file.
